Translation of the Poem "Danse Macabre" by Jean Lahor (Henri Cazalis) (1840-1909)

"Zig-a-zig-a-zig"—Death is tapping the tomb with his heel at midnight,
playing an air on his out-of-tune fiddle—
"Zig-a-zig-a-zag"—The winter windblows, and the night is gloomy groans can be heard in the trees. 
White skeletons dart through the shadows, running and jumping in their great shrouds. . . 
"Zig-a-zig-a-zig"—They each jig about, and one hears the clatter of the dancers' bones. . . 
A lascivious couple sits down on the moss as if to re-live the sweet nothings of yesteryear. . .
"Zig-a-zig-a-zag"—Death scrapes endlessly on his sour instrument. 
A veil is dropped, the dancer is nude, her young partner squeezes her lovingly; the lady, they say, is a marchioness or baroness, and the young man a common wheelwright. Horror! 
Look how she's carrying onas if the oaf was a baron!. . . 
"Zig-a-zig-a-zig"—What a hullabaloo! These rings of corpses are all holding hands!
"Zig-a-zig-a-zag"—One sees Kings leaping about in the crowd with thieves. . . 
But hush! All at once the dance stops. Elbowing each other aside, they rush, they flee; the cock has crowed. 
Oh what a beautiful night for the poor of the world. Long live Death—and Equality!'

The following is a free translation of the poem  (you can click the underscored text for a sound sample) :
 
Moonbeams break fitfully through the ragged clouds. Twelve heavy strokes sound from the bell in the church tower. As the last stroke dies away, strange sounds are heard from the graveyard, and the light of the moon falls on a ghastly figure: it is Death, sitting on a tombstone, tuning his fiddle. Shrieks are heard from the graves around and the wind howls through the bare tree-tops. 
The sinister notes of Death's mistuned violin call the dead forth from their graves, and clad in white shrouds, they flutter around in a demoniacal dance. The quiet of the churchyard is rent by hollow cries and horrible laughter. Wilder and wilder race the rattling skeletons round the figure of Death, as he beats time with his clacking skeleton foot. Suddenly, as if seized by a terrible suspicion, they stop. In the icy wind, Death's notes cannot be heard. A tremor runs through the ranks of the dead. The grinning skulls are turned, as if listening, towards the pale moon. There is a sad interlude as a couple, killed on their wedding night, dance out a tragic memory of their once happy times. But Death's goading notes once more shatter the silence, and once again the dead hurl themselves into the dance, wilder than before. The howling wind joins in the ghastly choir, and moans in the bare linden trees. Suddenly Death stops his playing. In the stillness that follows is heard the sound of a cock crowing. The dead scurry back to their graves, and the weird vision fades away in the light of dawn.